A "jealous" husband strangled his estranged wife to death at her Bromley home after she refused £100 to sleep with him one final time, a court heard.

"Possesive" Martin Cavanagh, 35, is on trial charged with murdering 31-year-old Sophie Cavanagh, who was originally from Selsdon, on May 19 - more than a year after they separated.

They split up on Boxing Day 2016 but this didn't stop Cavanagh trying to control his ex, the Old Bailey heard on Thursday (November 22), and he is accused of killing her at her flat.

The jury was told the pair had gone to Wingham Wildlife Park, in Kent, and The Chatterton Arms pub, in Bromley Common, to meet friends just hours before Ms Cavanagh died.

Her lifeless body was found under a duvet in her bedroom the next day, May 20, and her damaged mobile phone was found in a bin.

Prosecutor Alexandra Healy said: "[Ms Cavanagh] and the defendant married in September 2011.

"The defendant had a controlling, jealous and possessive manner both during the period of time that they were together in that relationship and after a point in time when they separated but remained married.

"He had a short fuse and got angry quickly."

The body of Sophie Kavanagh was found in a Bromely flat on Sunday, May 20 (Image: Met Police)

The couple separated on December 26, 2016, but still tried to do activities together, the Old Bailey heard.

"Cavanagh continued to be jealous and tried to control Sophie," said Ms Healy.

"If she attempted to start a relationship with other men they would not last long because he would find out and control the people she was talking to."

Ms Healy said that Ms Cavanagh had told a friend just a few days before the murder that Cavanagh had offered her £100 to sleep with him - an offer she refused.

"I want to have you one last final time," he is alleged to have said in one pleading text read out to the jury.

Read More

Phone records show Ms Cavanagh's phone was used to access the internet for long periods on the evening of May 19 before finally going offline shortly after midnight.

Police found the phone in the kitchen bin and the jury was told it appeared someone had tried to chop it up with a pair of scissors.

'It is an indication that whatever led to the defendant strangling Sophie, that his jealous obsession with finding out with whom she was in contact with on her telephone played a part,' said Ms Healy.

The court heard the pair had been out on an evening four months before Ms Cavanagh's death and she told the defendant she had to go because she was seeing another man that night.

Cavanagh, of Dryden House, Chatterton in Bromley, then sent a series of audio recordings to a mutual friend asking him where she was, as well as a live video clip showing him holding a "large curved knife" to his neck then collapsing on the floor, the Old Bailey heard.

Police found him unhurt, indicating he had pretended to injure himself on camera.

Read More

"The recordings demonstrate the state the defendant was in when he was obsessing about Sophie being with other men and was consumed with his jealously," said Ms Healy.

"It shows the powerfulness of that jealousy and how it impacted on his behaviour."

Ms Healy said he had also hacked into her Match.com page where he changed her picture and wrote something inappropriate on her profile.

A pathologist who examined Ms Cavanagh's body found the injuries to her neck and face, were in keeping with "manual compression of the neck".

The expert found they were not inflicted during a "fleeting grasp of the neck", but would have stemmed from 'sustained' pressure being applied with death resulting in anywhere from between 15 and 30 seconds up to "a few minutes".